Keeper Liability and Driving-Licence Checks: Why Regular Checks Are Mandatory
What does Halterhaftung (keeper liability) mean?
Anyone who entrusts a motor vehicle to others takes on responsibility: the keeper may only allow persons to drive who actually hold the required driving permission. The German Road Traffic Act makes it a criminal offence for the keeper (Halter) to order or permit someone to drive a vehicle without a valid driving licence (§ 21 StVG). In a fleet, this duty does not fall on the driver alone - it falls on the company as the keeper and thus, in practice, on the management and the persons entrusted with the fleet.
From this keeper responsibility, case law and business practice derive that the keeper must satisfy themselves of the continued existence of the driving permission not just once at vehicle handover, but regularly. After all, a driving licence can be withdrawn at any time without the employer finding out. The recurring visual inspection of the driving licence has become established, in many fleets twice a year - which also corresponds to the FMWeb default interval of 180 days.
Delegation: transfer duties, retain responsibility
Management can delegate the organization of the driving-licence check to a suitable person - typically the fleet management. Such a transfer of duties should be made expressly and in writing, so that in an emergency it is clear who was responsible for what. In doing so, management cannot fully "rid" itself of its responsibility: the selection of the person tasked and the spot-check supervision of whether the checks actually take place remain with it.
Without documentation, no proof
If an incident occurs, what counts is not that a check was carried out - but that it can be proven: who checked which driving licence, when and by what means? A complete, exportable check history is therefore the core of every driving-licence check. Missing or incomplete records will, in case of doubt, make it look as though the check never took place.
How FMWeb supports the driving-licence check
FMWeb 10.4.0 covers the organizational part of this duty in four places:
- Check intervals per driver: In the driver record you maintain the driving-licence interval in days (default: 180) and the date of the last presentation. FMWeb calculates the next due presentation automatically (article 46). In addition, the vehicle record warns when an assigned driver lacks the licence class needed for their vehicle.
- Reminder e-mails: FMWeb automatically reminds drivers of upcoming and overdue licence checks - with configurable lead time and placeholders for different texts before and after the due date (article 05). Skipped drivers (driver block, self-drivers, missing e-mail) are traceable in the e-mail monitoring.
- Electronic check via FleetSync/Fleet-ID: If the visual inspection is done via the external provider Fleet-ID, the FleetSync background task automatically collects successful checks, updates "Zuletzt vorgelegt am" (Last presented on) and recalculates the next check (article 116).
- Check history and logs as proof: The inspections dialog of the driver record documents every check with date, source and user - filterable and exportable. In addition, the journal under Systemadministration → Protokolle (System Administration → Logs) logs every reminder run (article 16). Together this produces the documentation that matters when proof is required.
Limits of the software
FMWeb organizes, reminds and documents - the actual check (the visual inspection of the driving licence or the external service provider's procedure) remains an organizational task of your company. Define internally who checks, how the check is carried out and how conspicuous cases (licence not presented, driving permission withdrawn) are handled, for instance via the driver block.
Note: This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal or tax advice.
Related articles
